


a love letter to liberty from the 18th letter

by CallMeBombshell



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: M/M, Poetry, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-04
Updated: 2013-11-04
Packaged: 2017-12-31 11:36:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1031248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>all of this is to say<br/>that all those times you said<br/>you didn't understand me,<br/>you should have looked closer<br/>at what i was drinking.<br/>there are a thousand things i have said,<br/>sarcasm and cynicism warring on my tongue,<br/>but beneath that i am screaming,<br/>my tongue speaking words<br/>you have never been able to hear<br/>beneath the whiskey on my breath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a love letter to liberty from the 18th letter

i've drowned in enough bottles  
to know that whiskey tastes like honey  
and disappointment,  
the kind you feel bone-deep  
when everyone else has long since  
stopped expecting anything better,  
and yet you still keep finding ways  
to let yourself down.

tequila goes down smokey,  
salt-bite heavy and bitter on your tongue  
and the ghost of lime behind your teeth,  
like the sweet tang of sweat  
when you press your lips  
to someone else's neck  
because you're too afraid of  
the words they might taste  
if you kissed their lips instead.

rum is for the times when  
you have to pretend  
that you only drink socially,  
that you drink for the taste,  
that you only drink when it's  
mixed with pineapple or coke,  
when you have to pretend  
that you don't drink  
to drown yourself out.

vodka goes down like fire,  
crashing and burning on it's own,  
but the moment you  
drown it in something else,  
hide it away under something  
stronger and less hurtful,  
it suddenly becomes more palatable.

wine is sophisticated,  
aged and refined and full-bodied,  
glass held between the fingers  
of your left hand,  
sipped at casually in between  
lines of carefully-cultivated conversation,  
intellectual and interesting,  
ignoring the way the tablecloth  
is full of red stains like old blood  
from the times when that glass  
has gotten to heavy to hold  
on it's own.

after so many bottles of  
amber-taurine-topaz-crystal  
colors as hard as the liquor itself,  
beer seems tame by comparison,  
single can in hand,  
less alcohol than a shot,  
but when you put away twice as many  
that shit adds up to even more,  
tiny drops collecting like the  
downpour that heralds the flood,  
washing the ground from beneath your feet  
and leaving you adrift.

i've drowned in so many bottles  
that most times i tend to think  
that there isn't any room  
left in me for anything else,  
no room left for caring or ambition,  
no room left for anything but to fill  
the holes i keep punching in myself,  
a shot for each heartbreak,  
a drink for every failed opportunity,  
a bottle for every promise  
i've broken to myself.

all of this is to say  
that all those times you said  
you didn't understand me,  
you should have looked closer  
at what i was drinking.

there are a thousand things i have said,  
sarcasm and cynicism warring on my tongue,  
but beneath that i am screaming,  
my tongue speaking words  
you have never been able to hear  
beneath the whiskey on my breath.  
i hide behind my bottles,  
but they never hide me,  
just illuminate the parts of me  
i wish no one could ever see.

i wish one day that you would  
look past my red-rimmed eyes  
and stumbling steps,  
look past my paint-stained fingers  
and the way they wrap around  
the neck of a bottle  
like i wish they were someone else's hands  
around my neck, instead.

i wish you would wrap your hands around me  
the way they wrap around  
the wooden post of a sign  
when you stand on street corners and scream,  
determined to change the world  
with the force of your voice,  
your fists in the air  
like you honestly believe  
that we can all be better than we are.

you have always said that you believe  
i am capable of so much more,  
and i don't know how to tell you  
that, as wrong as you are,  
i only wish i could believe  
that you are right.

i have drowned in enough bottles  
that there isn't room in me to believe  
that i will ever be a better man;  
there isn't room enough in me to hope  
that our voices are strong enough  
to rattle windows, to shake doors  
and break down walls  
they way you promise us you can.  
there isn't enough room in me  
to believe that we can change the world,  
that the world will ever change at all,  
no room in me to believe  
that our little lives  
mean anything at all.

but i believe in you.

i believe in your voice,  
i believe in your conviction  
that every little bit matters,  
that every day is a battle  
and that we are winning  
because we refuse to give up.

i believe in your strength,  
the shout of your voice  
and the clench of your fist  
and the way you stand up  
not because you yourself wish to be tall  
but because you believe that  
every one of us deserves  
to be held aloft,  
held up and seen,  
held up and heard,  
that every one of us deserves to  
stand straight-backed and proud,  
unbent and unbowed,  
that every one of us deserves dignity.

and you make me want to believe, too.  
despite the whiskey and the wine,  
despite the way most days i seem  
to be more holes than man,  
despite the paint stains on my hands  
and the wine stains on my lips,  
you make me want to stand up,  
to stand tall and shout,  
raise my fist for a cause  
i'm still not certain i believe in,  
but knowing that you do  
makes me want to stand beside you,  
to have you look on me  
the way i look on you,  
bright and golden and alive...

you make me want to live.

i have spent my life dying,  
spent my days pouring  
poison down my throat,  
killing myself a little more each day  
so that at least i can say  
that i died on my own terms.

but if you asked it,  
i would live for you,  
and if i am to die,  
i would die beside you.  
i would give my life  
that yours might go on,  
that your world might be born  
from the ashes of mine,  
and you make me want to believe  
in something greater.

i have lived all my life  
as a cynic and a fool,  
but do you permit it,  
i would believe in you.  


**Author's Note:**

> i've never posted any of my fan-poetry here before, but i really liked this one, so i figured, what the hell? you can also find it [over here](http://terrorwolves.tumblr.com/post/65986602682/boxomancy-a-love-letter-to-liberty-from-the%22) at my fanfic/writing tumblr.


End file.
